Jim_Callahan:Anyone who says "taking chances is rewarded" with respect to cooking is either stupid or has never cooked. It takes science-level repetition to slowly grind out a new recipe, it's one of the few things less amenable to real creativity than doing your taxes.

You _cannot_ just randomly throw shiat together/modify recipes on a whim, unless you're only cooking for yourself and your roommate (who would otherwise not be eating at all).

Jim_Callahan I respect and appreciate the bulk of your posts but this one I have to disagree with. In baking yes, it is much an exact science, very unforgiving and not open to experimentation. As for meal prep/cooking I find the skies the limit. The rare time I do use a recipe it is to give me direction to the town i want to get to, but i usually miss the turn-off by several miles. If it makes a difference, I'm a seasoned old cook with many a meal under my belt (and hanging horribly over me belt, too!) so years of playing with spices and ingredients probably gives me the confidence to act like a monkey in the kitchen.

It seems like most reality TV is just people yelling at each other in various situations. In this case an asshole chef yelling at other chefs. Others include; trainers yelling at fat people, rich 16 year olds yelling at their parents, poor 16 year olds yelling at their children, people yelling at each other about motorcycles, couponers yelling at cashiers, skanks yelling at each other, skanky housewives yelling at each other, skanky biatches stuck in a house yelling at each other, people stuck in a house yelling at each other, people waiting for buses in third world countries yelling at each other to overly dramatic music...

The idea of taking risks paying off is incredibly important. I see the majority of students as so terrified to make a mistake they won't even try half the time. I'm not sure what we're doing to our kids as a society, but we need to change the fear of failure. I feel it may be the single most detrimental thing I see in the school system. And that is saying something.

In our middle school home ec/cooking and wood/metal shop were all mandatory for both genders. As I recall, for the most part we all more or less enjoyed all of them to various degrees, even if it was just something different to do for a while. All skills worth knowing.